Ford Recalls 140,000 Focus Cars On Wiper Issues

Automaker Ford Motor Co. (F) is recalling Monday about 140,310 passenger cars amid worries that a missing moisture seal could hurt the motor that runs the passenger side windshield wiper.

The recall was made public by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

The passenger cars involved in the recall are model year 2012 Focus vehicles manufactured between August 2010 and October 2011. Most of the cars in question were reportedly built on Ford's Michigan factory line, but an additional 20,000 were built outside of America.

Dearborn, Michigan-based Ford noted that the missing seal in the connector of the wiper motor could result in the water or other contaminants to accumulate in the connector. This could lead to reduced visibility in a heavy rain due to intermittent or inoperative passenger side wiper motor and cause a crash.

The owners of the recalled Focus vehicles will be instructed by Ford to take the vehicles to their dealers to have the defect inspected and get the connector cleaned and properly sealed. The company said that any repairs will be performed free of charge, even if an inoperative wiper motor has to be replaced.

Meanwhile, rental service Avis Budget Group, Inc. (CAR) said Friday that it is immediately taking steps to remove about 10,000 of the model year 2012 Ford Focus sedans from its rental fleet in the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico following receipt of the safety recall notice from Ford.

After identifying the affected vehicles within the Avis Budget fleet by Vehicle Identification Numbers provided by the manufacturer, the company has placed those cars on "hard hold" in its reservations system, which prevents the vehicles from being rented.

Avis Budget, which has a fleet of about 300,000 vehicles in North America, said it expects that removing the affected vehicles will not cause any disruption in customer service and that all existing reservations can be fulfilled as usual.

In Monday's regular trading session, F is currently trading at $12.12, down $0.35 or 2.81% on a volume of 15.45 million shares.